Ani Difranco - Fuel

They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan
and they discovered a slave cemetery there;
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon
— we’ve moved on to the electric chair.
And I wonder: who’s gonna be president —
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who’s gonna have the big blockbuster box office this summer?
How ‘bout we put up a wall between the houses and the highway
and then you can go your way and I can go my way.

Except all the radios agree with all the TVs
and all the magazines agree with all the radios
and I keep hearing that same damn song everywhere I go!
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
and a marshmallow in each ear
and stumble around for another dumb, numb week
for another humdrum hit song to appear.

People used to make records — as in a record of an event:
the event of people playing music in a room.
Now everything is cross-marketing —
it’s about sunglasses and shoes, or guns and drugs
— you choose:
We got it rehashed, we got it half-assed
We’re digging up all the graves and we’re spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors of the lipstick on the whores
‘cause we know the difference
between the font of twenty percent more
and the font of teriyaki —
You tell me:
How does it make you feel?

You tell me what’s real (what’s real? what’s real? what’s real?…)

And they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
even when they’re dry as my lips for years
even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
with no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder: is he different? Is he different?
Has he changed what he’s about?
Or is he just a liar with nothing to lie about?

Am I headed for the same brick wall?
Is there anything I can do about anything at all
— except go back to that corner in Manhattan
and dig deeper, dig deeper this time…
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history,
beneath unknown bones
beneath the bedrock of the mystery
beneath the sewage system and the path train
beneath the cobblestones and the water main
beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
beneath everything I can think of to think about
beneath it all
beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
there’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire just waiting